The only issue I have with this suggestion is that all of the situational awareness needed to _use_ Elasticsearch effectively is the same as is needed to _opera

The only issue I have with this suggestion is that all of the situational awareness needed to _use_ Elasticsearch effectively is the same as is needed to _operate_ Elasticsearch effectively. If you're just spinning up something's defaults and throwing data in it, that bill is going to due eventually and it's probably going to be ugly.